It was one of four major global tours sponsored by PokerStars. The Latin American Poker Tour, European Poker Tour, Asia-Pacific Poker Tour, and North American Poker Tour make up the four stops.

The LAPT has recently announced three festivals for 2024. The first of these takes place in April in Panama with a $1,500 buy-in main event. The festival also includes three high roller tournaments, all priced at $3,000 and a $1,000 Mystery Bounty Knock Out Championship.

The second stop of the season in October will be a joint event with the Brasilian Series of Poker in Rio de Janeiro, with a R$7,500 ($1,500) main event. The season concldues in December in Montevideo, Uruguay.

The first season of the Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT) ran in the spring and summer of 2008 and saw three stops, Brazil, Costa Rica, and Uruguay. As with the other stops on this tour, year two saw huge growth, more stops, more players, and bigger prizes. One of the events in season 2, LAPT Mexico, was canceled. So while season two should have had five stops it only officially had four. 

Season two continued on in Chile with a $141,426 payout, then a $283,580 payout in Uruguay, and the final stop with the biggest prize ($381,030) in Argentina. While season two was a dramatic one with the Mexico stop, it was positive to see it get back on track and continue to grow over the final three stops in the tour.

Season three was very much like season two (and not just because it also had a cancellation). The LAPT Season Three tour kicked off again in Costa Rica and had the smallest payout of the season ($172,095). The tour again went back to Punta del Este in Uruguay for stop two and a $279,330 prize. 

Stop three was the cancellation. It was supposed to be in Chile but the tragic earthquake struck and ravaged the country, leading to the complete cancellation of that tour stop. 

Stop four was the tour's first stop in Peru and had a cool quarter million dollar payout. That stop also gave us our first two-time winner when Jose “Nacho” Barbero took home the title and $250k. We again saw stops in Brazil and Argentina to round out the tour.

Season four is when the LAPT truly started to explode. The tour's first stop in Columbia broke the previous tour record for entrants with 681 players. That year also saw the biggest payout to date and that was at the Sao Paulo, Brazil stop where Alex Manzano won $368,703. 

By season six we had six stops in six countries and over a million dollars paid out to first-place winners. Season seven gave us our second two-time winner as Fabian Ortiz won his second time. Side note, the first two, two-time winners, were both Argentinians. 

By 2015 the LAPT Grand Final was supposed to be held in Peru that year but it would be moved to form part of the 2015 Caribbean Adventure. We also got another two-time winner from Mario Javier Lopez.

The LAPT took a one-year hiatus in 2017 after PokerStars decided to reformat and have all events fall under two new categories. Either PokerStars Championships or PokerStars Festivals. Championships are events with buy-ins closer to $5,000 while the Festivals have buy-ins closer to $1,000.

PokerStars received a lot of backlash for the upheaval of their tournament schedules. They had gotten rid of tournament stops like the European Poker Tour, the LAPT, and more which had many regional events that offered ways for some players to get into larger events that they normally wouldn’t be able to otherwise. 

It had been some time since we had a Latin American Poker Tour but in March 2023 we had the first Latin American Poker Tour event since 2016. 

Held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil this LAPT stop had six events with buy-ins ranging from $800 to $5,000. The Main Event ($1,500), Single Day tournament ($3,000), Single Day tournament ($4,000), NLH High Roller ($5,000), Mystery Knockout ($800), and lastly NLH High Roller Progressive Knockout ($3,000). 

This event offered a lot as they had buy-ins that most people could afford and had games for the high rollers as well. Brazil’s own, Anthony Barranqueiros, took home a $132,000 grand prize. Since then there have been two more events in Uruguay and Panama, with one more tour date scheduled for November of this year.  

It’s safe to say that for now, the Latin American Poker Tour has returned. It may still have a ways to go before earning its place back as one of the mainstays on the world poker stage but for now, we are at least glad to have it back.